Is Dellin Betances Being Disrespected By The Yankees?

In the news the last few days, it has been reported how Dellin Betances lost his arbitration hearing. The 3-time All-Star asked for $5 million and received a little over $3 million. It appears Mr. Randy Levine, the President of the Yankees, said some things that upset Betances. But I feel he learned the hard way that baseball is a business, in where the owners are trying to keep the salaries in line and not always willing to give the ball players everything they feel they deserve.

Betances is a home grown product and after struggling as a starter has become one of the best set-up men in baseball the last three years. Fantastic numbers in which he has the best strikeout ratio in baseball in those years. In an arbitration hearing the owners go into the hearing wanting to win and save money and the players also want to win. Sometimes the ball players don’t see the complete picture, but I am not siding with the owners, I am just looking at it with my own perspective.

Betances at 29 years of age is now making $3 million dollars for six months of work, playing a sport he loves. When his career is over maybe in 5-10 years he will be able to have a very nice comfortable life especially if does wise investments. The owners make billions of dollars in baseball and if Betances had won his arbitration hearing and received over $5 million, I don’t think the Yankee owners would be going belly-up.

Betances as I stated before is a wonderful talent whom I love watching pitch. What I believe hurt his case was when he became a closer for the Yankees after Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller were traded. At first he was doing well but as the 2nd half progressed, he started to feel the pressure and showed us areas of his game that needs to be addressed. First he does not hold runners on the bases well. I was shocked to see how bad he was throwing to the bases. Both of these limitations cost the Yankees games.

He needs to work on his fielding, throwing to bases and holding runners closer to the bases. Betances was exposed and I believe his arbitration hearing would have gone better if the second half of the season had gone better for him. He forced the Yankees to rethink his status as a closer and had to sign Chapman to a record salary for a closer. If Betances would have shown them he was their closer of the future, then maybe they could have spent the money shoring up their starting rotation.

I still believe he will be a dominant set-up man but he needs to put this hearing behind him and show the Yankees he is the best set-up man as well show his fans that he will not let this set back affect his pitching. But if he doesn’t, fans will turn on him as quickly as they turned to him. If he does this, the fans will be the first ones to support him when he again comes up for a contract renewal.

So my advise to Dellin Betances is, to go get ’em in 2017 and show the fans how much you really love being a Yankee.

Elias is a native of the Bronx, NY and a lifelong baseball fan. In High School, he once pitched a gem on the same field as Ed Kranepool and grew up rooting for both the Mets and the Yankees. Elias is a retired NYPD and Ocala, FL Detective and spends his quality time with family and writing about the game he loves.